


The Coloring Book

by zarrati



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Ben angst, F/M, during break up fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 15:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5296523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarrati/pseuds/zarrati
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are days when he just doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Days when he spends hours in the bathtub ignoring April screaming profanities at him through the door.<br/>There are days where the world passes by him in nothing more than a blur, nameless and faceless. Except for her.<br/>She is sharp, defined, perfectly clear against the nothingness. She stands out everywhere she goes, and it kills him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coloring Book

**Author's Note:**

> Fic Requests: Ben/Leslie "You remember how she used to stick her tongue out when she was colouring?" angst please.  
> Ben angst set during the breakup.

There are days when he just doesn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. Days when he spends hours in the bathtub ignoring April screaming profanities at him through the door.

There are days where the world passes by him in nothing more than a blur, nameless and faceless. Except for her.

She is sharp, defined, perfectly clear against the nothingness. She stands out everywhere she goes, and it kills him.

Sometimes he wonders if those sadness baths are just him trying to wash her off of his skin. But it always fails. She leached herself into his pores, became so ingrained with him that he isn’t sure if she’ll ever leave.

The whole damn city just  _reeks_  of her presence. Every place has a memory that stabs at him like a million tiny daggers, over and over again.

He’s never sure what will send him spiraling. The quick whiff of warm waffles. Flowers that smell so much like her perfume he swears she’s standing right next to him. 

That bench in front of the wildflower mural on the second floor. That damn bench where he sat next to her eating hamburgers and wished more than anything that rules didn’t exist.

But no, it’s not any of those things that makes him want to weep like a child in the middle of the supermarket. It’s a coloring book. A stupid, fucking coloring book.

One thing about Leslie Knope is that while she is sharp as a whip and has a mind unlike any other, she is also very much in touch with her inner child. There are whole closets in her home devoted to glitter, beads, and construction paper. Bins and bins filled with markers, pencils, and crayons of every color imaginable. 

And yes, she loves coloring books.

Granted, her tastes are little more sophisticated than your average 7-year-old, books filled with intricate and complex designs and optical illusions, animals and landscapes so lifelike that they look like photographs once Leslie is done with them.

As he stares at the book, he can picture her sitting at her dining room table with her brow furrowed in deep concentration as she chooses her colors. He remembers the way that her tongue would stick out of the corner of her mouth as she carefully stroked to stay within the fine lines.

She is always creating something. Beautiful and wonderful things. And that’s why he had to let her go, so she could go out and create things that are even better.

But the fact that it’s the right decision doesn’t make his heart hurt any less.

He’s not sure what possesses him to pick up the book, but it soon joins the other items in his cart, and it’s not until he’s unpacking his bags at home that he fully realizes what he’s done.

The book burns a hole in his desk drawer for nearly two weeks before he summons up enough courage to do something that he knows he shouldn’t. But Leslie has been under so much stress lately with her campaign that he just wants to something nice for her. He reasons that it’s only a fair exchange. She gave him her book, so he can get something for her.   

He can’t give it to her face to face, though. He isn’t sure he’ll ever be ready for that, so instead he wraps the book in a few layers of tissue paper, ties a bow around it, and leaves it at her desk while she’s in a meeting.

Under the guise of talking to Donna about meaningless paperwork, he loiters in the office, waiting. Leslie gives him a strained but polite smile when she returns, and he does his best to inconspicuously spy on her through the office window.

She grins when she sees the gift on her desk, reaching for the little card that bares his familiar scrawl.

 _‘Congratulations on the book’_  is all that it says, and after she reads it, her head snaps up.

He quickly turns his gaze away, but out of the corner of his eye, he can see Leslie bite her lip and tear off the paper.

His heart breaks at the small smile that graces her lips because it’s happy, but so, so sad at the same time. She wipes at her eyes, and even from this distance, he can see the tears pooling.

She clutches the book to her chest and briefly closes her eyes before looking up to find him again.

This time, he allows their eyes to meet, and it’s the best and worst mistake he could possibly make.

She is still holding the book tightly to her chest, her eyes most definitely red, and she mouths a heartfelt ‘thank you’.

He gives her a small smile and the briefest of nods before he has to turn away because that feeling is back in his chest, and he needs to leave before he does something he’ll regret.

He excuses himself, and just like that, the world is blurry again. It’s blurry because all he wants to do is make Leslie smile like that for the rest of her life, but he can’t. Not now, and maybe not ever.

He can only hope with all of his heart that maybe, someday, he can watch her color again.


End file.
